ROCHESTER — Raised garden beds can make gardening easier. You can make them any size for any living space — from large outdoor beds to small containers for smaller spaces.
shows that if you grow vegetables, you’re more likely to eat them. So gardening — even if you have a single tomato plant on the porch — is a way to potentially help people work in their five to seven servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
My hubby and boys helped me make a raised bed garden during a spring snowstorm. It was a fun, family project and even our dogs helped out.
I wanted raised beds for two main reasons; to avoid having to bend over all the time to tend the plants and to create a welcoming space where I could sit in a folding chair and sip coffee in the morning.
The University of Minnesota Extension’s (UMN)
notes that raised beds allow for better control of control soil composition, they have better drainage than in-ground beds and they warm up faster in the spring. So you can get a head start on planting.
We built our beds with wood that was already on our property. But be careful. The UMN suggests using untreated, rot resistant wood. Cedar is a good (but pricey) choice. Railroad ties or other treated woods may have chemicals in them, such as creosote, copper, aluminum and arsenic, which can be toxic to plants and people.
If raised beds are deep, you might want to consider adding some leaves or sticks before adding a mix of soil and organic matter. That way you won’t need as much soil.
I’ll give more tips on what to use to fill your containers and raised beds in the next episode.
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